Environmental rating exposes the ‘Centre’ in the Council of States

For animal welfare and wildlife, this is more than a footnote.

For it is precisely this small chamber that plays a central role in decisions on hunting legislation, wolf culls, herd protection, and the response to the biodiversity crisis.

The environmental rating of the Environmental Alliance – BirdLife, Greenpeace, Pro Natura, SES, VCS and WWF – evaluates the most important votes of the current legislative term. It takes into account proposals on the climate protection act, motorway expansion, groundwater protection, and the biodiversity initiative.

The sobering figures:

• Centre in the National Council: around 46.5 percent of evaluated votes cast in favour of nature and the climate — a significant improvement compared to the last rating.
• Centre in the Council of States: only 23.5 percent, a decline of 7 percentage points. On average, Centre Party members of the Council of States vote in an environmentally friendly manner on barely one quarter of environmental proposals.

So while the Centre Party in the National Council labours painstakingly at cultivating a green image, it behaves in the Council of States exactly as the agricultural and hunting lobby expects: clearly and predominantly against environmental and nature protection concerns.

Particularly explosive: according to the Environmental Alliance, it is precisely the Centre Party representatives on the Council of States’ environment committee who are said to be among those voting most frequently against nature and the climate. Those who prepare the dossiers are thus simultaneously watering down the protection of natural livelihoods.

Hunting and wolf policy: A textbook case of bourgeois environmental denial

That this trend is no abstract statistic is exemplified by wolf policy. In September 2025, the Council of States decided to permit wolf culls even in hunting reserves and to expand the possibilities for shooting so-called “problem wolves.” The motions were adopted by a clear bourgeois majority.

Already with the revision of the hunting law passed by parliament in 2022, the thresholds for regulating wolf packs were lowered. Proactive interventions in packs have since been possible under certain criteria, even though the wolf remains a protected species.

Characteristic of this policy:

• Instead of consistently investing in effective herd protection, ever new fantasies of culling are indulged.
• Instead of acknowledging the wolf's role in an ecologically severely disrupted Alpine region, the animal is declared an enemy in order to maintain an outdated symbolism of hunting and livestock farming.

The same political axis that performs poorly in environmental ratings is thus driving forward a hunting policy that disregards scientific findings on the ecological function of predators. This fits the pattern: those who systematically put the brakes on climate and soil protection are equally careless about ecological reality in forests and on alpine pastures.

Biodiversity in crisis – and the Council of States stands in the way

Switzerland is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis: numerous farmland bird species, amphibians and insects are declining massively. Environmental organisations such as BirdLife have been documenting the loss of habitats and the disappearance of many species from everyday landscapes for years.

Against this backdrop, one might expect that a party which likes to present itself as “centrist” and “responsible” would at least stand up in parliament on the most important environmental legislation and say: Stop, this cannot go on. The opposite is the case:

• On the question of motorway expansion, the majority in the Council of States prefers road projects from the last century rather than curbing land sealing and shifting traffic to rail and bus.
• On groundwater protection, the approach is to play for time, even though pesticides and nutrient surpluses have long been causing demonstrable problems in drinking water.
• The biodiversity initiative has been postponed, watered down or blocked for years by counter-proposals that do not deserve the name.

Those who systematically undermine the ecological foundations also place the habitats of wildlife under pressure. Hunting does not take place in a vacuum. A roe deer ruminating in an over-fertilised, species-poor monoculture in August, a capercaillie that can no longer find undisturbed forest areas, a fox commuting between road and maize field in the over-developed Mittelland — they are all products of this policy.

To then stand there in autumn with a rifle and present oneself as a “nature lover” is hypocrisy.

The “Mitte” between marketing and reality

Die Mitte likes to advertise with images of mountain farmers, alpine herders and well-kept landscapes. In their campaigns, politicians appear who emphasise how much the rural areas, animals and “our homeland” mean to them. However, the data from the environmental rating reveal how far this self-image is from actual policy.

It can be summarised as follows:

• In the National Council the party attempts to salvage a minimum of ecological credibility.
• In the Council of States it unabashedly serves the wishes of the hunting, agricultural and road lobbies, and sides with the SVP and parts of the FDP against fundamental environmental concerns.

From a hunting-critical perspective in particular, this is explosive. For the decisive policy directions on hunting and wildlife policy are determined by precisely these centre-right majorities in the upper chamber:

• Who receives the authority to shoot wildlife, and under what conditions?
• How is herd protection financed and monitored?
• Which areas are genuinely kept free for wildlife, and which are further fragmented and built upon?

Answer in one sentence: The further right and the more “Council of States-oriented”, the weaker the protection for nature and animals.

The responsibility of the media and civil society

The environmental alliance has created important transparency with the environmental rating. Citizens can see at a glance who actually votes in favour of ecological measures and who merely talks about it.

Yet these figures only generate pressure when they become widely known and when media outlets and NGOs have the courage to clearly name contradictions:

• A party whose Council of States members vote for nature and climate on average only in roughly every fourth relevant dossier cannot credibly present itself as “ecologically responsible”.
• Those who enable wolf culls in protected areas have no claim to being regarded as “animal lovers”.
• Those who combine highway expansion, pesticide leniency, and tightened hunting regulations actively contribute to the further destruction of wildlife habitats.

This is precisely where a clear, hunting-critical voice is needed to bring these connections to public attention.

Those who want to protect wildlife must scrutinize the Council of States more closely

The midterm review of the environmental ratings shows: the real “front line” in Swiss environmental policy runs not only between parties, but also between the two chambers. In the National Council, the Centre party manages a degree of ecological correction, but in the Council of States, a course dominates that places hunting interests, road construction, and agricultural privileges above the protection of nature and wildlife.

For animal welfare and hunting-critical circles, this means:

• The voting and electoral behavior of individual Council of States members must be observed far more closely and made public.
• Environmental and animal welfare organizations should systematically link environmental ratings with hunting-policy votes in order to make the behavior of the “wolf cull faction” visible.
• Voters for whom wildlife, biodiversity, and climate protection matter should, in future Council of States elections, take a close look at whether they can truly afford such a “Centre.”

4. What does this mean, summarized from a hunting-critical perspective?

When examining how the hobby hunters in the National Council and the Council of States vote, the available data paint a clear picture:

1. In the National Council
   • The three clear SVP hobby hunters (de Courten, Hug, Schnyder) have environmental ratings of between 0 and just under 2 percent. They vote almost invariably against environmental concerns and consistently support a pro-hunting and pro-agricultural line, including relaxations on wolf policy, hunting legislation, weapons law, and transport.
   • Lorenz Hess has a more pro-environment record, but as a hobby hunter and Centre politician he acts as a hinge that legitimizes hunting interests within the Centre.
2. In the Council of States
   • Stefan Engler and Fabio Regazzi are officially positioned by JagdSchweiz as “hunters in the federal parliament.”
   • Engler sits in the middle range with approximately 38 to just over 50 percent, but in practice plays a key role in watering down wolf and hunting regulations.
   • Regazzi, at approximately 18 percent, sits clearly in the anti-environmental camp, particularly on transport and climate issues.
3. Political line
   • The hobby hunters in parliament sit almost exclusively in the SVP and Die Mitte, with the SVP clearly at the extreme anti-environmental fringe.
   • They systematically support policies that
     • seek to regulate or expel predators,
     • expand or entrench hunting privileges,
     • prioritize road construction, motorization, and agro-industrial interests over species and animal protection.

From a hunting-critical perspective, the «hunting bloc» in the Federal Palace is therefore not a vague feeling but something measurable: while a large share of the population rejected the revised hunting law in the 2020 referendum and strengthened the protection of wildlife, the problem hunters in parliament largely advocate for policies that push in exactly the opposite direction.

As long as the upper chamber uses its power to block environmental concerns and expand hunting privileges, Switzerland will remain far from a respectful approach to wildlife. The environmental rating provides the facts. The consequences must be drawn by us as a society at the next elections.